Tag: Malaria

Categories : Antibiotics Obstetrics & GynaecologyTags :

Azithromycin Protects Pregnancies in Countries with Malaria

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Photo by Hush Naidoo on Unsplash

A review has found that the common antibiotic azithromycin taken during pregnancy reduces low birth weight and premature births in countries where malaria is endemic.

The systematic review of 14 studies in African and Asia, published in The Lancet EClinicalMedicine, found that azithromycin, reduced low birth weight and prematurity but didn’t lower infant deaths, infections and hospital admissions.

Azithromycin, an inexpensive antibiotic widely used to treat chest and ear infections, has been specifically used in the past in pregnancy to treat STIs and, alongside other antimalarial drugs, to prevent adverse consequences of malaria on maternal and foetal outcomes and caesarean wound infections.

Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) researcher Dr Maeve Hume-Nixon said it was not clear whether azithromycin would improve perinatal and neonatal outcomes in non-malaria endemic settings, and the potential harm on stillbirth rates needed further investigation.

Dr Hume-Nixon said these findings emphasised the importance of similar MCRI-led research currently being done in Fiji.

“This review found that there was uncertainty about the potential benefits of this intervention on neonatal deaths, admissions and infections, and potential harmful effects on stillbirth despite biological reasons why this intervention may have benefits for these outcomes,” she said.

“Therefore, results from studies like ours underway in Fiji will help to better understand the effect of this intervention on these outcomes.”

The Bulabula MaPei study is a randomised controlled clinical trial testing if azithromycin given to women in labour, prevents maternal and infant infections.

Globally, infections account for 21% of 2.4 million neonatal deaths per year and 52% of all under-five deaths, disproportionately occurring in low- and middle-income countries.

About five million cases of pregnancy-related infections occur in mothers each year as well, resulting in 75 000 maternal deaths.

MCRI Professor Fiona Russell said the large clinical trials in Africa and Asia, along with the MCRI-led trial in Fiji, were likely to inform global policy related to maternal child health and hopefully benefit infants and mothers around the world.

“Administration of azithromycin during labour may be a cheap and simple intervention that could be used to improve neonatal death rates in low and middle-income countries, alongside strengthening of maternal child health services,” she said. “This study, together with other large clinical trials, will add to evidence for the consideration of new international maternal and child health guidelines.”

Source: Murdoch Childrens Research Institute

Categories : Diseases, Syndromes and Conditions New Compounds and TreatmentsTags :

New Antimalarial Compound Traps Parasites in Cells

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Photo by Егор Камелев on Unsplash

To combat the growing resistance of malaria to current treatments, researchers at the Francis Crick Institute and the Latvian Institute of Organic Synthesis have designed a new antimalarial compound which interrupts the malaria parasite life cycle by trapping them in their host cells.

While drugs and mosquito control have reduced levels of malaria over recent decades, with malaria being effectively wiped out in North America by the 1950s, the parasite still kills over 400 000 people every year, 90% of whom live in sub-Saharan Africa. It has now developed resistance to many existing antimalarial drugs, meaning new treatments that work in different ways are urgently needed.

If we can effectively trap malaria in the cell by blocking the parasite’s exit route, we could stop the disease in its tracks and halt its devastating cycle of invading cells.
Mike Blackman

The researchers developed an array of compounds designed to prevent the parasites bursting out of blood cells, a vital replication step. One compound in particular was found to be very effective in human cell tests.

“Malaria parasites invade red blood cells where they replicate many times, before bursting out into the bloodstream to repeat the process. It’s this cycle and build-up of infected red blood cells which causes the symptoms and sometimes fatal effects of the disease,” says Mike Blackman, lead author and group leader of the Malaria Biochemistry Laboratory at the Crick.  

“If we can effectively trap malaria in the cell by blocking the parasite’s exit route, we could stop the disease in its tracks and halt its devastating cycle of invading cells.”

Blocking the parasite’s emergence

The compound works by blocking an enzyme called SUB1, needed for them to burst out of cells. Current antimalarials kill the parasite within the cell, so the researchers hope this alternative drug action will overcome the resistance the parasite has acquired.

The compound can penetrate both the cell wall and the compartment within where the parasites reside.

The researchers are further refining the compound making it smaller and more potent. Further tests are needed before it can be trialled in humans.

Study author Chrislaine Withers-Martinez and researcher in the Malaria Biochemistry Laboratory, said: “Many existing antimalarial drugs are plant derived and while they’re incredibly effective, we don’t know the precise mechanisms behind how they work. Our decades of research have helped us identify and understand pathways crucial to the malaria life cycle allowing us to rationally design new drug compounds based on the structure and mechanism of critical enzymes like SUB1.

“This approach, which has already been highly successful at finding new treatments for diseases including HIV and Hepatitis C, could be key to sustained and effective malaria control for many years to come.” 

Source: Francis Crick Institute

Categories : Diseases, Syndromes and Conditions Medical Research & TechnologyTags :

Novel Magnetic Technique Detects Malaria in Blood

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A new magnetic method has been developed that can detect malaria, leading to faster, accurate and cheap diagnosis of the deadly disease.

An international study field-tested this new tool in Papua New-Guinea, in the hopes of helping the fight against this disease, which had 229 million reported cases in 2019, with 700 000 deaths a year.

“Malaria is easily treated but it is actually hard to diagnose, and because of that there can be over-treatment, which we have seen can lead to the spread of drug-resistant malaria,” said Dr Stephan Karl, a Senior Research Fellow in Malaria and Vector Biology at James Cook University’s Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine.

“Improving malaria diagnosis, especially through the development of practical methods for resource-limited places, is important and timely,” he said.

An international team including the University of Augsburg’s Professor Istvan Kezsmarki, with the PNG Institute of Medical Research and the Burnet Institute, came up with the magnetic detection method, called rotating-crystal magneto-optical detection (RMOD).

When malaria parasites break down blood, the haeme molecules are aggregated by the parasites into biocrystals called haemezoin, which contain magnetic iron. This iron can is detectable by the RMOD method.

“I’ve studied the magnetic properties of malaria infected blood since 2006, and we engaged with Professor Kezsmarki’s team in 2013 to demonstrate the sensitivity of this test using human malaria parasites,” Dr Karl said.

A field study was successfully conducted, involving almost 1000 suspected malaria patients in a high-transmission area of Papua New-Guinea.

“After years of in-lab optimisation of the device, in collaboration with Dr. Karl we demonstrated the great potential of RMOD in fast and reliable malaria field tests performed in Papua New-Guinea,” Prof Kezsmarki said.

“We showed that RMOD performs well in comparison to the most reliable existing method..It’s very promising, as RMOD testing can be conducted after a short training session and provides test results within 10 minutes. From a funding perspective the cost is very low since no expensive reagents are used,” said Dr Karl.

Dr Karl said the aim was to refine the design until a test could be done by a simple button push.

Source: Medical Xpress

Journal information: L. Arndt et al, Magneto-optical diagnosis of symptomatic malaria in Papua New Guinea, Nature Communications (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-21110-w

Categories : Diseases, Syndromes and ConditionsTags :

Africa has 94% of All Malaria Cases

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On November 30, the World Health Organization released this year’s World Malaria Report. Providing an up-to-date overview of the current global malaria disease burden, it also tracks investment, innovation and research against malaria.

Globally, malaria deaths have steadily declined over the years 2000–2019, from 736 000 in 2000 to 409 000 in 2019. The percentage of total malaria deaths that were children under 5 years of age was 84% in 2000 and 67% in 2019.

Six African countries accounted for 51% of global cases, with Nigeria (27%) contributing more than the other five countries combined. Partly this is due to its large relative population size compared to the rest of Africa, having over 200 million citizens.

Elsewhere, great progress is being made, The largest reduction in cases in the WHO South-East Asia Region was seen by India, from about 20 million cases in 2000 down to approximately 5.6 million in 2019.  Sri Lanka has been certified malaria free since 2015.

Source: Outbreak News Today